2025: A Year of Classical Music

(note: to cut to the chase and read the list of classical music I’ll be listening to in 2025, scroll to the bottom)

Lately I’ve been fed up with talk radio and rock radio while driving around the Chicago area, and I’ve found myself absentmindedly tuning in to 98.7 WFMT, the local classical station, allowing me to appreciate what used to be a regular listening experience for me. My exposure to classical music has waned over the years, but it was significant during my childhood: between my parents’ listening habits and my piano lessons, band and choir concerts, solo and ensemble competitions and the like, not to mention an occasional concert in the park or local orchestral performance, classical music was very much a part of my life. As a young adult, when CDs became a thing, I’d buy the occasional classical CD, and I must have forty or so on the shelf today.

Although my active listening to classical music decreased when my children were young, my exposure to classical music was still significant, as my wife and I attended our children’s band, orchestra and choir concerts. It wasn’t until my children left home that this automatic exposure to classical music ceased, and I forgot to ramp up the intentional listening of my young adulthood. As a result, this music has mostly been absent from my life for the past decade or so.

It’s time to correct that, but I’d like to approach it in a concerted way (no pun intended). I’m going to devote 2025 to listening to classical music in a way I’ve never done before: consistently, repeatedly and intently. I’ve created a list of pieces to listen to over the course of the year, from some of the earliest choral works to musical pieces from the 21st century.

To what end? What’s the purpose? Mostly, I’d like to find additional pieces of music that I enjoy listening to. If I can find a few pieces that really wow me, or a composer or two I can explore further, then it’s mission accomplished. But I’d also like to have an overall better understanding of how music progressed over time, what the innovations were, and what some of the musical nomenclature of the classical world means. After all, I consider myself a musician, but there’s so little I know about classical music, and that shouldn’t be the case.

To help me with my cause, I’ve purchased three books on classical music:

1)      The Vintage Guide to Classical Music by Jan Swafford.

2)      The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross

3)      What to Listen for In Music by Aaron Copland.

I’ve completed the last book and was struck by a few observations by Mr. Copland:

“No composer can write into his music a value that he does not possess as a man.” (p. 212) This is very much a theme I considered when writing what is probably my favorite fictional piece that I’ve authored: “Nosebleed.” (2011, https://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1355&context=plr) I’d like to learn a bit more about the composers to help me understand their compositions.

Also from Copland: “When I hear a new piece of music that I do not understand, I am intrigued – I want to make contact with it again at the first opportunity. It’s a challenge – it keeps my interest in the art of music thoroughly alive.” (p. 199)  This is the spirit I’m going to try to tap into during my endeavor.

As always with these types of undertakings, there are some rules I’ll be following:

1)      I’ll only be listening to music that I don’t already know well. So, no Water Music, Eroica, Pictures at an Exhibition, The Planets, 1812 Overture, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, and the like. Sure, all of those pieces and many others could warrant another listen, but that will have to wait for another time. Of the pieces I’ve decided on, I think there are three or four I’ve heard before: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, Keith Emerson’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony.

2)      I’ll be listening in chronological order, which should illuminate for me the progression of music through the centuries. 

3)      Each piece will be listened to, not watched. If the only way I can get a performance is on YouTube, I’ll stream the audio, not the video.

4)      I will listen to each piece initially without any knowledge of the piece aside from the year and the composer. Only after listening one time through will I consult the aforementioned books and a website or two to get some historical context.

5)      I will listen to each piece at least three times, allowing me to better absorb the music hopefully to the point of some degree of understanding.

I’d like to blog about my listening experience from time to time, though I’ll do so more from a layperson’s perspective, as my knowledge of music is mostly limited to the rock world. We shall see how this goes!

Without further ado, the following is the roadmap I intend to follow, though there could be some edits along the way. For many of the pieces, I’ll be listening to a particular movement or movements. My parents, my friend Uli and my daughter Jessica helped curate this list for me, along with several good websites devoted to the genre. The list below is color-coded to indicate which works I’ll be listening to in a given week.

The Artist vs. The Art Itself

Richard Brody makes an odd claim in this month’s issue of The New Yorker.  He posits that because Alfred Hitchcock’s directorial technique was a direct offshoot of his “own ugly fury,” that it should be less revered by current directors and critics, and that the admiration of Hitchcock’s craft is a dangerous affair.  He writes:

The cult of Hitchcock, which presses directors’ ideas and critics’ taste toward his hyperrational craft and conceals his tormented frenzy, tends to thrust some filmmakers’ impulses, and the critical response to some of the best modern films, to the sidelines.

A pretty bold – and completely unsubstantiated – assertion.

Regardless, it raises an interesting question: should an artist’s personal life influence the way we view the art itself? 

I like the art of Jasper Johns, but I know nothing about the artist.  Not a thing.  Perhaps I should, and perhaps I’d be better for it, but would anything I discover change the painting that I admire?  It would still be the same art, the same use of colors, the same shading.  My perception of the artist might change for the better or for the worse, but I would hope not my admiration for the art itself.

I heard Beethoven’s third symphony for the first time in 1986 and over time began to admire it greatly (as a young rock and roller, classical pieces sometimes took their time).  Later, I learned that it had originally been dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte for his anti-monarchy idealism, only to be withdrawn.  Should this matter one iota to my admiration for the piece?

I think not.

Awards for art, movies and books should be viewed in a similar light.  Casablanca isn’t a better film for having won Best Picture, and Do the Right Thing isn’t a worse film for not having won the same award (or even nominated!).  They are both brilliant in their own right.

Then again, I can think of examples when my admiration for a song was actually enhanced once I learn the story behind it.  There’s no way you can tell me that Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” isn’t that much more beautiful, compelling and heartbreaking when you learn that it was written for his dead son, or that Lyle Lovett’s wonderful album, The Road to Ensenada, isn’t given a bittersweet tinge after learning that it largely chronicles his breakup with Julia Roberts.  One of my all-time favorite songs, Jackson Browne’s ”I’m Alive,” is even more compelling to me when I consider his breakup with Daryl Hannah. 

What can I say?  Pop music for me is sometimes a substitute for People Magazine!

On occasion I learn about the inspiration behind a song only to wish I hadn’t.  I recently read about the Ben Folds song, “Eddie Walker,” a wonderful tune for which I created my own story, and although the true inspiration for the lyrics isn’t in a completely different universe from my own interpretation, it still clouds the mental image I’d formed and will probably do so forever more.  For this reason, I admire artists who let songs be once they’re composed and refuse to offer insight into their origins.

And then there’s the ugly side.  Hitchcock’s purported sexual harassment, for instance. But many artists have an ugly side, and it would be silly for us to view their art through that lens. Roger Waters has said some pretty controversial and stupid things over the years, but I still think The Wall is still brilliant.  John Lennon used to hit his girlfriend.  I still love “A Day in a Life.”  I haven’t spent a penny on Elvis Costello since he told an audience at The Chicago Theater to “fuck off,” but I certainly can’t claim that I don’t still love his music.  Hell, you couldn’t pay me to see a Mel Gibson movie, but there’s no denying the fact that the guy can act and direct.

My father and I recently corresponded about this subject, and he wrote: “Does it matter what Brahms' psychotherapist thought was behind his compositions? Was Shostakovitch mentally ill or sexually repressed?  Who cares?  You love his 5th Symphony for what it is.  And Wagner: let's not even get into his politics.  Too much analysis and not enough appreciation and enjoyment.”

Too much analysis and not enough enjoyment.  There you are.  

Perhaps Richard Brody should do as I did two nights ago and rewatch Vertigo – perhaps with his daughter as I did – and enjoy it for what it is: a perfectly-executed telling of a creepy story.  If someone thinks it’s the best film of all-time, fair enough.